Sales tax referendum to preserve green space in Beaufort County may be heading to ballot

You soon could be paying more to protect green spaces from development in Beaufort County, but a proposed sales tax to do so faces an uphill battle.

The County Council on Monday passed the green space sales tax referendum on second reading. It still has one more reading and a public hearing, then would have to be approved by voters in November.

The proposal will increase the county sales tax by a penny for four years or less and caps revenue at $300 million. The sales tax would go from 6% to 7%.

If passed, the county estimates that 40% of the revenue would be paid by tourists and vacationers.

The money would be used to purchase plots of land in the county and keep them from being developed — a problem county officials say is slowing destroying the area’s natural environment. Some of the land could be turned into parks, while other tracts would be left untouched, officials said.

The referendum proposal passed by a vote of 8-2.

Councilmen Logan Cunningham said in recommending the tax it’s time to act.

“We talk about trying to slow the growth in the county. This is actually an action of doing that,” Cunningham said during the meeting.

Others voiced their concern. Councilwomen Alice Howard said she couldn’t support the proposal because the county did not have enough information on how the tax would be implemented.

Howard added the referendum was unnecessary because the county already has tools to address over development. She was joined by Councilmen York Glover in voting “no”.

There are no specific tracts of land currently under consideration for purchase with proposed sales tax revenue, The county Public Information Officer Chris Ophardt said.

History of tax increase referendums

In recent years, county voters have been mostly consistent in their opposition to approving sales and property taxes at the polls.

▪ In 2021, voters rejected a penny sales tax increase after some critics argued the county hadn’t specified how those funds would be spent.

▪ Voters rejected another referendum in 2018 to borrow money to help pay for county renovations to public school buildings.

▪ In 2016 voters rejected two referendums — a penny sales tax referendum to pay for infrastructure projects and a request by the Beaufort County School Board to borrow $217 million for renovations.

▪ A proposed referendum in 2013 never made it on the ballot, and the County Council scrapped a proposal designed to provide property tax relief.

“The citizens of Beaufort County truly want to know can we do this with state and local tax money that we’ve [already] paid in?” Ophardt said. “They want to ensure that the local government isn’t just going for tax revenue for the sake of tax revenue and ensuring that it’s spending every dollar it already has effectively.”

A big hurdle to any tax increase proposal is the current state of the economy.

State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, who has pushed for the adoption of the referendum, said last month he supported tailoring the referendum to address concerns about the current state of the economy.

“I ... think it’s important to instill some public confidence ... because the economy is obviously strained right now with prices rising,” Davis said at the June 27 County Council meeting.

Davis had recommended to the council a 0.5% sales tax instead of 1%, but the council ultimately stayed with a penny tax. Councilmen Chris Hervochon said the green space tax will reduce taxes long term due by putting less pressure on the county’s infrastructure.

Inflation hit 9.1% in June, the highest rate in more than 40 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Davis wrote the County Green Space Sales Tax Act in the South Carolina Legislature, which was enacted in April. The legislation allows counties to increase their sales tax to purchase undeveloped land and preserve it as green space, if passed by a referendum.

The only recent exception to county voters’ anti-sales tax posture came in 2018 when voters approved a penny sales tax increase to pay for infrastructure projects; the tax lapsed in 2021 after it had raised the maximum $120 million.

Conservation measures popular

Beaufort County voters in recent years have passed bond issue referendums raising money for conservation through property tax increases.

Since 2002, voters have voted yes on five referendums raising $170 million for the Beaufort County Rural and Critical Land Preservation Program to fund conservation efforts in the county. A person with a $250,000 owner-occupied home saw their tax bill increase by an estimated $9-$10 a year.

Funds from the program, which have protected about 29 thousand acres according the program’s 2021 annual report, were used to keep Widgeon Point Preserve and farm land on St. Helena Island as green space, akin to what the proposed sales tax revenue would be used for, Ophardt said.

“Green space is extremely popular,” Ophardt said. “Between comments to council and comments online on social media platforms, growth and density is one of the [top] concerns of the community.”

A second referendum that had been discussed was an additional 1 cent sales tax to pay for transportation and infrastructure improvements. But the county council deadlocked 5-5 on passing the referendum on a second reading, and the council ran out of time to get it passed in time to put it on the November ballot.

Several council members said they did not have enough time to educate the public on the benefits of the transportation referendum before November, and it was politically unfeasible to put two sales tax increases on the ballot at the same time.

County Council Chairmen Joseph Passiment added the environmental protections in the transportation referendum were redundant considering the council’s consideration of the green space referendum. Despite the setback, several council members expressed support for reexamining a transportation sales tax before the 2024 election.

The council discussed an option to sell municipal bonds to pay for green space acquisitions, with the sales tax revenue used to pay off the bonds, plus interest. No determination on how green space projects will be paid for will be made until after the referendum vote in November.